Managing your O-licence online: Are you?

The DVSA and Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain recently published information about the progress of their new digital services for operator licence applicants and licence holders. These new services allow businesses to apply for and manage vehicle operator licences online.

The new services have been accessed over 600,000 times and have been used to:

process 200,000 vehicle changes;

make over 3,600 licence applications; and

make over 40,000 licence.

The new online services have also apparently helped to reduce licence processing times. Nine weeks has been the service standard for a long time. For the first 3 months of the service, the average processing time for digital applications was less than this. Quarterly figures are expected to be available in the future.

Managing your licence online is an important part of the service. The new services allow you to:

apply to increase your vehicle limit;

apply to add a transport manager to your licence; and

add more vehicles to your licence.

So, what can we expect next from the new online services? Two main improvements have been proposed.

The first is making the service safer and more secure, using GOV.UK Verify. It’s the new way to prove who you are online. It gives safer, simpler and faster access to government services. It will effectively replace your signature on a paper application form and will involve your identity being verified

The second improvement will let you continue your licence online. As you know, operator licences have to be continued every 5 years. Sometimes operators miss payments or fail to return the paperwork on time. This is expected to be available in late 2017.

Backhouse Jones helped with the trial of the new system so are well-versed in how it works. If you want any further information why don’t you give one of our regulatory team a call on 01254 828300 and see if we can help?